that— from the office and from the files. There had been rumors. Rumors aplenty. That he had fallen into drink and dissipation. That he had retired. That he had been fired.
And then, suddenly—today—he was back. Dark and tall and elegant. Swaggering, even when he was standing still. Anna felt her lips curling up in a smile now as she pictured that. Johnathan Hazard’s absence seemed to have made all the secretaries’ hearts grow fonder. Maybe even her own.
She thought once more about her astonishing day. From the moment that man looked at her, it had been as if she were moving in some odd spotlight, being noticed by people who ordinarily ignored her. And not merely noticed, but cared for. She felt, well…quite special.
She had never wanted to be special, though. Quite the opposite. She had planned to live her life quietly, retiring from the Pinkerton Agency when her hair was gray and her bones were bnttle, moving to the seaside, perhaps, where she would spend her remaining days taking quiet walks on the beach and reading all the books she didn’t have enough time for now.
Of course, she still would. But now, when she retired, she would have one dazzling memory to savor. And that, Anna supposed, was worth a bit of risk.
In a month or so, she would be back in the file room, and invisible again. But no one would be able to take away the memory that for one bright and splendid month, she had been not only a Pinkerton spy, but Johnathan Hazard’s wife, as well.
She was going to have an adventure. After that Anna thought as she drifted into sleep, she would return—to this room, to her filing, and to her comfortable oblivion.
It was well after midnight when Ada Campbell, the madam of the city’s foremost house of pleasure, determined that all was well in the parlors downstairs and that she could at last retire to her personal quarters on the second floor, where Mad Jack Hazard was waiting for her.
Not that she was anticipating an evening of love, she thought as she climbed the ornate staircase, stopping once to peer at a nick in the oaken banister and then again to pick up a feather from the Oriental runner that led to her rooms.
Jack had been back for nearly a week. The handsome Pinkerton agent was one of the few men whom she permitted in her rose-brocaded sanctuary and to whom she gave her favors gratis. Only on this visit, Jack Hazard was behaving more like her guest than her lover. He hadn’t touched her once. Damn it.
Ada frowned as she neared her door, questioning her own abilities at seduction. She’d never had to seduce this man before, though. Not Hazard. Not any other man, for that matter, but particularly not Hazard. He’d always been more than eager to join her in her bed, and more than creative once there. Masterful, in fact. The best. What the devil was wrong with him now? And how was she going to fix it? For, if she didn’t, the madam decided, there was really no use in having him around.
She paused to adjust the frame of a French watercolor that had cost her a small fortune. If there was anything that Ada Campbell, the city’s foremost madam, didn’t need at this juncture in her career, it was a constant, live-in reminder that her personal charms were on the wane.
His head snapped up as soon as she stepped into the room, and he flashed her that cavalier grin she’d come to adore over the years. Good God, the man was handsome. It would be a pity to have to kick him out.
The bottle of sour mash—full as far as Ada could see—still rested on the draped and swagged table. Hazard’s fist was still clenched around it.
“Hello, love,” he said in a voice at once soft and sad and annoyingly sober. “All done downstairs?”
Ada sighed, fearing she was done upstairs, as well, unless she took some drastic action that would bring her former lover to his senses. She plucked her ear bobs off, tossed them in the direction of her jewel box and proceeded to take off her clothes.
With his fist tightening around the bottle, Jack swallowed a groan. Ada, it seemed, had reached the end of her tether, not to mention her patience. He had expected that. He was surprised it hadn’t happened earlier—last night, for instance. Or the one before that, when he’d kissed her, then promptly turned his back and fallen asleep—or, more exactly, feigned sleep for both their benefits.
“What’s the matter with you?” the madam had hissed into her pillow.
“Everything,” he’d wanted to say. “Nothing. Dead men can’t feel pain or passion. Aren’t they both the same?”
He sat now and watched her undress—sinuously, seductively—sorry he had reduced the notorious madam to using tricks she hadn’t had to resort to in years. Not that they did any good, he thought sourly.
She stood before the pier glass, having tilted it to give him a perfect and unobstructed view as she peeled away various layers of satin and lace. Down to her red corset now, she unhooked it slowly, held it closed a moment, then shed it the way a jeweled snake might rid itself of useless skin, letting it drop, forgotten to the floor. In the mirror, her breasts had a silvery sheen. Small, yet succulent. Not a feast, by any means, but a delectable dessert.
He ought to get up, Jack told himself. He ought to move toward her, to offer the palms of his hands like warm salvers, to take the delights the famous Ada Campbell was offering. A year ago, he would have, only it wasn’t in him now. He couldn’t move.
“I’ll be leaving tomorrow,” he said in response to the frown that was digging between her eyes and darkening her beautiful face.
“All right.” Ada snatched up her corset and strode to the wardrobe, where she grabbed a silken dressing gown from a hook and shoved her arms through its sleeves. “You can sleep here tonight, but don’t bother coming back,” she said on her way to the door. “Ever.”
She stood there a moment, shaking her head, her expression wavenng between fury and dismay. “You were a lot more fun when you were drinking, Jack. In fact, I think I liked you better that way.”
The ensuing slam reverberated through the room, probably throughout the house, but Jack didn’t blink. His fingers merely tightened on the bottle.
It was a game he played every night. A test. He told himself he hadn’t quit. He was in training—like an athlete preparing for a competition, like a Thoroughbred doing evening workouts around a track.
He was going to win, God damn it. And that sweet prospect was worth every insult and humiliation he’d had to endure, including begging Allan and suffering Ada’s current disgust.
Nothing mattered except bringing the baroness down. Killing her would be too easy. Jack felt his lips sliding into a feral grin. He had imagined murdering her a thousand times, playing out a variety of scenarios in his head. But each time he pictured Chloe Von Drosten dead, it gave him no pleasure, because in death she looked so peaceful, so far beyond earthly pain.
The sad truth, he had to admit, was that he wasn’t so certain he could do it. To murder the baroness, he’d have to be alone with her. It hadn’t been so long since their last encounter that he couldn’t imagine all his hard-won sobriety and all his rage shuddering and collapsing at the crook of a red-tipped finger or drowning in one of Chloe’s wine-colored smiles. He was a damn drunk, but he wasn’t a fool.
He needed a wife—a buffer. What a choice he’d made! A mouse to cower between him and the devil. Mrs. Matlin, the plain, bespectacled widow. The nonentity.
Ah, well. In a month,
